If you have ever been to Europe and especially areas adjacent to the Mediterranean, you are familiar with how useful and beneficial the shutter is. In America, the shutter has become bas relief on our facades, but the shutter serves more than an aesthetic purpose.

The shutter is a wonderful way to block out the harmful rays of the sun, mitigate the flow of air through a house and create a varied approach to the opening in our homes.

For those of you unfamiliar with how shutters work in countries that actually use them, I will talk about one of the more complex versions I have seen. There were three parts to the door/window system.

1. Glass door/window
2. Louvered shutters with both top and bottom sections
3. Solid shutters with both top and bottom sections.

Depending on the configuration, this system could thermally protect or open up the apartment in multiple fashions allowing for great comfort independent of the outdoor temps and weather conditions.

Does anyone else think its weird that we don't do this anymore?

Yes and no. I understand that the shutter can be a device for mitigating the effects of the sun, but what you don't mention is that they pre-date the mass production of glass windows. They were used in stages kind of like opening and closing a window. Its a very very old approach. It did hold on in Europe and other parts of the world to work in concert with the glass window. Here in the US people just let the idea fade over time and as window technology became more functional and with higher insulation.

So it is weird that we are in an ecologically conscious time and we miss an easy method, but its not weird in that we actually have windows that can outperform the shutters and don't require physical interaction with the technology multiple times a day.

Our windows today outperform anything that was ever used in combination with shutters. I do still see use for shutters in areas prone to bad weather. A glass window for the most part fails to protect where a wood shutter would succeed.

I think shutters have become pure decor except in some hurricane prone regions. People would rather pay for higher performing windows than take the effort to use shutters. Its also the whole thing, that shutters block views and people would rather see out easily through a window than have to go open the shutters.

I side with the its too much work for something our windows are capable of doing today. What happened to shutters? Progress, technology and market forces.

Shutters just aren't needed anymore. They are used for a nostalgic or stylized look but are rarely if ever functional. There are uses in tornado and hurricane prone areas, but even then, there are windows that rival the performance of shutters.

Its just not feasible for people to pay for both windows and functional shutters, when all they will do is leave the shutters open and rely on the window and shades, blinds, etc to handle lighting and temperature controls.

I don't even think they look nice on the side of the house anyway. Is there actually a big push for people to start using shutters again?

they are on my grandma's little ranch house in suburban Kansas City.